Chapter Fifteen
Aurora
I can’t stop staring at him as Aunt Céline bustles around the kitchen, clattering mugs and muttering in French. He looks… human. And I can’t believe he’s actually here.
She hands us our cups of tea and leaves us to talk.
I finally find my voice. “Explain.”
His hands wrap around the mug. “My father… he loved nothing more than our mother. She—” He swallows. “She couldn’t handle his obsession. She felt suffocated. So she ran away. My father died from the inside long before he actually killed himself. And I spent years swearing I’d never be like him.”
My heart breaks for this man. When you look at him, you see nothing but strength. But he has cracks, and breaks, and hurt. He has trauma—just like me, and just like all of us.
“When I first saw you,” he continues, “I realized I was wrong. I wanted… to own. To possess. I fear that I won’t be able to let you go, Aurora. Even if you ask me to. For the first time in my life, I understand my father. I’m becoming him.”
And that’s how I know there’s something wrong with me. Obsession is not love. Obsession isn’t sweet—it’s not even safe. Yet my stomach flutters at the thought that I occupy every corner of Lucian’s mind.
Something clatters in the kitchen. Aunt Céline freezes mid-peek from behind the door, her cheeks red.
“Merde,” she mutters, bending down. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t listening.”
I snort. “You were definitely listening.”
She waves a hand at me. “Eh, maybe a little. I wanted to hear his apology.”
“I owe your niece more than an apology,” Lucian says.
My aunt comes and sits with us. “Women pretend to be complicated, but hearts aren’t as clever as we think.”
I glare at her. “Seriously?”
“I take the side of love, ma chérie.”
My mind spins. All my life, she warned me—men like Lucian—they ruin women. They consume them.
And yet… here, he doesn’t feel dangerous.
Maybe… maybe the devil isn’t always impossible to love.
Aunt Céline clears her throat. “I have customers to feed. Try not to scare them off this time, hmm?” she says before disappearing.
Silence settles again, but I break it.
“How can things ever go back to normal? What am I supposed to do with the articles, the press, all of it?”
“You don’t have to. It’s handled.”
“Handled?”
“I made some calls. Let’s just say the stories won’t exist by morning.”
I press a hand over my eyes. “You can’t just make things disappear.”
“You’d be surprised what disappears when I decide it should.”
I stand before I can think, and the next thing I know, my arms are around him. He murmurs near my ear, “You know the contract was just an excuse, right? My way to get close to you. I knew from day one you deserved better—better than me. But I’ll be damned if I let another man have you.”
I pull back. “Lucian…”
I don’t think we’re fit for each other. I always thought love should feel safe. Calm. Serene.
What we have feels nothing like that—it’s explosive, dark, and primal.
Before I can confess my fears, he takes his phone out of his pocket and turns the screen toward me. A headline flashes: Prominent producer found dead in her Manhattan apartment. Evidence points to suicide.
It’s the woman from the office—the one who tried to kiss him at the club. Nancy Smith.
“What have you done?” I screech.
“I fixed what hurt you,” he says simply. “That’s all you need to know.”
The corner of his mouth lifts like he finds my outrage endearing.
Am I angry? Scared? I should be. But there’s this small, twisted pulse of relief spreading through my chest.
She tried to destroy me. She didn’t think I was worthy of Lucian. She wanted to take my place—to annihilate me.
And now she’s gone.
I’m disgusted by what I feel. By the tiny part of me that’s… glad.
“Don’t torture yourself for it,” he murmurs. “The world isn’t kind to gentle people, Aurora. It eats them alive.”
My head’s a mess. What now? Do I forgive him? Pretend none of this ever happened? Or do I pack up, run, and never look back?
The truth is, I don’t even know if I want to run. Somewhere between all the wreckage, I think I’ve started to lose track of who’s the real danger.